More than the Sum of our Influences

I reread Chapter 1 of Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, and what first struck me was something he wrote on the one page introduction: "These ideas apply to anyone who's trying to inject some creativity into their life and their work. (That should describe all of us.)" I thought, "Yes! To live a happy and fulfilled life, creativity must be a part of it, no matter what kind of work a person does!"

When Kleon states, on page 11, "You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let in your life. You are the sum of your influences." This is an interesting topic to ponder. I'd have to go one step further and say, "...what you choose and even some things you don't choose..." Then again, some believe in the theory that we all choose the life we have in one way or another. We choose what we do and do not allow to affect us, influence us. Well, whatever your philosophy is about that, I think we can all agree that we do make many, many choices about what we decide to spend our time doing, what places we visit, what music we listen to, what movies we see, what people we choose to be around, and so on, at least to a great extent. These choices do shape us and, to some degree, determine what kind of person we are in terms of our creativity, our flexibility, our open-mindedness or lack thereof, our mental habits, how we view others, how we view ourselves, how we view the world.

I find that the older I get, the more hungry I am to let more and more things into my life. Perhaps it's because there's a certain point at which people realize that they actually will not live forever! Seriously, you always know it at some level, but there's a deeper realization that we experience at some point (and different people experience this realization at different ages). 

I've always had a lot of interests; in fact, that's why I've done so many things—I've been an elementary school teacher, a massage therapist, a musician, a dabbler in many forms of visual art, and now a graphic designer. I get interested in a hobby and do it for awhile, then I find another one that interests me more. I've volunteered for animal welfare organizations and rescues, I've taken private tennis lessons, I've gotten into flower gardening, I've written short stories, and these interests come and go and come and go. I love to be in good health and do things for myself that make me healthier, such as regular exercise (running, cardio classes, kickboxing, etc.), healthy eating habits, and meditation. Meditation has been something that changed my life a few years ago, and even though I don't meditate nearly as regularly now that I'm so busy with school, I am really trying to meditate for even just a few minutes a day. I love to read, and sometimes it's fiction that I'm into while other times it's nonfiction of various topics from the Dust Bowl in the early 20th century to insects and spiders. I enjoy plays, movies, live music of all different kinds, modern dance concerts, art shows, museums, festivals, and other events. I enjoy getting into a TV series and will only watch that series from beginning to end while I'm watching it (Netflix or DVDs so I can do marathon viewings); no other shows or movies. I like games such as board games, bowling, ping pong, and games with my dog.

My family is a big influence on my life and my creativity. My mom was an amazing potter (she's still living but stopped making pottery some years ago); my dad is an ethnomusicologist and professor (emeritus now), the top in his field, and has written so many books I've lost count; my sister is a dancer, choreographer, and professor of dance; my brother-in-law was an opera singer and professor, now retired but still directing operas and musicals; my niece is a graphic designer, photographer, and art director, and my husband is a jazz musician, professor of music, and martial artist. I have always been supported by my family in all of my creative endeavors. They have also always appreciated arts and music of many kinds and from many cultures, and they have traveled the world (I've done a bit of traveling, but nothing close to my parents and my sister and her family). I love talking to people from other cultures. I have a degree in cultural anthropology, and I got very interested in Japanese tea ceremony, so I took two classes in college in Japanese tea ceremony and actually learned how to perform them (not that I remember how now). I love visual art and music from many cultures/countries, particularly India, Indonesia, Japan, South America, and Australian aboriginal art as well as Tibetan art...and more. I enjoy talking to people of all ages, and I always have. When I was in my 20s I had friends in their 40s and 50s as well as my contemporaries. Now, being a woman of, ahem, a certain age, I love my young friends from school and find I can relate to people of any age. I love the elderly. I love animals of all kinds, and I mean all kinds. I enjoy writing, and I find that funny because I used to hate it! So I'm a super-mashed up person. There's not enough time in this life to pursue all of my interests, but I feel I'm able to at least pursue some of them at different times. The phrase Kleon uses, "You are the sum of your influences," I would change to say, "You are more than the sum of your influences" because the one factor that no other (hypothetical) person with the exact same set of influences has is that you "mash" up those influences in your own unique way! 

I can definitely broaden my influences regarding things that will help me with my creative ideas. I would like to go to more museums, go to more concerts, spend more time in nature, travel more, read more, and be more adventurous. I'd like to spend more time with positive, creative people. That is my hope and my intention.

The creative thinker I chose to be my "mentor" is designer/illustrator/letterer Jessica Hische, whom I wrote about a bit in my last blog post. I have a huge Pinterest board of her work now, and I've watched some live interviews and talks she has given on YouTube (and have bookmarked even more that I still want to watch). I admire her so much, and I want to try to emulate her style in some of my work. Also, I feel that she's an amazing person that I really wish I could know personally. But I don't live in California, and she probably has more than enough friends anyway. :) So, in reading some things about Jessica, I found that she listed six or seven creatives who have been major influences on her and her work. I chose three of those people to begin to study, and I've created Pinterest boards for each of them as well. They are Louise Fili, Alex Trochut, and Chris Ware. So, I'll be checking out a lot of their work. In looking at some of their work, I can definitely see their influence in Jessica Hische's work, which is really cool.

Here are examples of their work (and I am including another example of Jessica Hische's work as well at the end):

Louise Fili:

Alex Trochut:

Chris Ware:

Jessica created illustrations for The 12 Days of Christmas as a personal project in 2006. I love her illustration so much!

Young Frankenstein | Movie Review

Young Frankenstein has been one of my favorite comedies since I was about eleven. It's definitely rich with visual images, and the fact that it's a black and white movie is a large part its charm. The appearances of the perfectly cast characters—Igor, Dr. Frankenstein, his fiancé, the monster, and more—are just brilliant and add to the overall look and feel of the film. Here is a very spooky topic—the neurosurgeon grandson of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein goes to Transylvania to "complete" his grandfather's work—that is twisted into the Mel Brooks style, zany, satirical comedy that he does so amazingly well. It all looks perfectly creepy and scary—the castle, the dark and stormy night, the trick bookcase, the monster, lots of scenes, the cinematography—an homage, assumably, to the original Frankenstein story, yet this movie being a spoof of that story makes one see all of it in a new and delightfully funny light. Of course, there are numerous hysterically memorable scenes that are both creepy and hilarious at the same time. Igor (pronounced EYE-gore) is probably involved in at least 50% of these scenes that are so brilliant.

Here's a great example. Dr. Frankenstein (pronounced FRONKINSTEEN), along with his "assistant" played by Teri Garr, is exploring the premises of the castle and comes upon some decapitated heads of various times of death, labeled as such. Starting with one that's 100 years old (a skull), then 25 years old, and so on, until he reaches "6 months dead," and finally "freshly dead," which, as you can see below, is actually Igor with his head on the shelf, making you jump, especially when he "pops to life" revealing his prank. It's such a memorable moment—one that causes belly-aching laughter, if you have that type of sense of humor! I think that it appeals to both adults and kids alike.

I could go on and on about this movie and why it's so memorable and entertaining, even influential, but the main point is that it especially makes use of visual elements, combined with everything else, for a certain effect. Again, take the characters—Igor (Marty Feldman) is one of the strangest looking dudes there ever was! And, he is so brilliantly funny. Gene Wilder plays Dr. Frankenstein, and his crazy hair and expressive face add tremendously to a remarkable performance. The monster (Peter Boyle) is terrifying because of how he looks and his huge size, but also because he is mistakenly given an "abnormal" brain due to a snafu on Igor's part; He's also quite endearing as he makes friends with a little girl, learns to (barely) sing and dance, and cries like a baby. He ends up with Frankenstein's fiancé whose hair looks like that of the Bride of Frankenstein after she spends a night with him. See photos below.

Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a very high rating of 94% and sums it up with, "Made with obvious affection for the original, Young Frankenstein is a riotously silly spoof featuring a fantastic performance by Gene Wilder."

I highly recommend this movie, and I guarantee that it will leave you with some fantastic images in your head. Maybe the young people of today won't know how to appreciate it 40 years later, but I think it's definitely worth a watch if you've never seen it. Check out the trailer on the IMDb page.

I'll leave you with some more great stills from the film. 

Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon—Love it!

For my Graphic Design III class we are reading a book called Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.

This week we read Chapter 1: Steal Like an Artist, and so far I love this book! It's about learning how to be creative and how we are influenced by everything around us. Kleon says, "What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original." (p. 7)

My first impressions of the book are that it is very easy to read but I'll want to read it (or parts of it) over and over again; it's easy to understand, but with rereading and thinking more deeply each time about what I'm reading, I'll understand it on a deeper level; it's a book that can be used as a guidebook or tutorial as I put to use the things I'm reading and learning from it. It's short but it's a highly valuable little gem.

I think it's interesting that Kleon uses the word STEAL because it has such negative connotations. However, stealing like an artist means that you collect ideas all the time from everywhere that you can—by jotting them down or sketching them or whatever—and use them in your own creations; it doesn't mean taking someone else's work and calling it your own. Jotting down ideas all the time, adding to your bank of ideas as much as possible allows you to draw upon a large pool of ideas when you are working on creating something. Much of this bank lives in your own mind; the things you love or things that have touched you deeply are the things that stick with you—these are the things you should use in your creations/designs.

I do need to be a better, more organized collector. I have a notebook that I carry with me all the time. Do I remember to get it out and write in it much? Not really. I am really going to make an effort to do that. Plus, I can use voice memos on my phone! I can snap pictures on my phone! There's no excuse for not having a large "swipe file," as the author calls it.

I just reorganized my browser bookmarks that have been building up for years. Ugh. I got rid of a bunch. And, I now have a cloud-based bookmarking app—Google Bookmarks. So easy. Here is my link and what I've bookmarked so far: My Bookmarks (I hope it works...I don't know if you have to be logged in as me to see them. Please let me know.)

The author suggests climbing your own family tree by choosing a creative thinker you really love and study everything there is to know about that thinker, which we'll call a mentor. I am going to choose Jessica Hische and begin to study her and her work intensely. Here is a sample of her work.

My favorite quote from Chapter 1 is a quote by a (brilliant) film director named Jim Jarmusch.

"Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only thing to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic."

I couldn't agree more.

Introduction. Welcome!

Welcome to my Graphic Design Blog. My name is Gloria Roubal, and I'm a Graphic Design student at Parkland College, planning to graduate at the end of this semester in May. While graphic design is a new career for me, I am concurrently a professional performing and recording musician/singer/songwriter. I have so many interests and want to experience so many things in this life that I have shifted careers about once every ten years. I have a bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology and a master's degree in elementary education (both from the University of Illinois) and also a certificate in neuromuscular massage therapy. For the past ten years I worked as a neuromuscular therapist at BodyWork Associates. Before that I taught elementary school in the Champaign Public Schools for ten years. Prior to that I was a secretary at the U of I which was what my bachelor's degree qualified me to do. :) I am passionate about music, art, and animals, and I live with my husband and our dog and two cats.

I have learned so much in the Graphic Design Program, and I am excited about the projects we will be doing in this Graphic Design III course. One of the concerns I have, however, is that we are at the point in the program where the expectation is to be able to work faster—there are five projects! It's preparing us for the real world, and that's rather daunting to me, partly because my process isn't particularly fast.

My creative process is based on what I've learned in school. Once the project is assigned (or once I have a freelance client project and have had the initial client interview), I research examples of similar projects for inspiration as well as researching the client, company, or anything else that is important to really understand before I begin working on concepts. Once I've done the research, I write the creative brief to the client to outline the objectives of the project and make sure I have understood the client's needs/class assignment. This gives the client a chance to come back and clarify things if needed. Now comes the sketch work. I really try to come up with as many ideas in the form of simple sketches as possible. From those ideas, I choose the best three and sketch them larger with more detail. In class we have critiques at each stage of the process. There is a critique of the concepts which usually narrows the three ideas down to the best one. Then it's time to go to the computer to execute that idea, hopefully with at least two variations. Back to critique, then editing based on that critique, and last, the final critique. In school, this works. In the few freelance projects I've done, the process varies depending on timeframe, the type of project, the client, and other variables.

I have to say that in the creative process, I often have trouble thinking of ideas—original ideas. Ideas that I like. Ideas that the client or my instructor and other students like. Ideas that are witty, clever, funny, etc. I see inspiring examples and think to myself, "I wish I could think of things like that!" I've been pretty happy with some of my projects in the end, and I work really hard and spend a lot of time on them, but I worry about having to come up with ideas fast in the real world at a real job.

I get my inspiration from a lot of places. I'm inspired by some of the amazing work I've found in Communication Arts, Print Magazine, and other professional magazines/periodicals. I have a good collection of bookmarks on my computer to great websites for inspiration, such as B, P & O (Branding, Packaging, and Opinion), The Dieline, Lurzers Archive, SwissMiss, and others. I love Pinterest and find it wonderful for finding inspiring work in all areas of art, design, typography, photography...just about anything. I'm inspired by many amazing artists, designers, musicians, dancers, writers, and other creative people.

Our culture doesn't value creative people enough, in my humble opinion. This is reflected in the compensation, financial and otherwise, that artists and other creative people receive for their work. Artists, musicians, dancers, writers—so many of them struggle because they are seen by much of society as outsiders, as people who just have fun and don't necessarily work hard, people who don't conform to the norms of society. Art and music programs are the first to be cut from schools when funds are low. They are seen as "extra," not "necessary" in education like reading, math, science, or history. I believe creativity—in the arts and in everything else—is crucial for children, for people to cultivate. Creative people are problem solvers. Creative people tend to be optimistic. Creative people are able to let go of themselves and let creativity flow through them. Creative people bring positive things to the world. Creative people aren't afraid to be who they are. Creative people make people feel things. I could go on. The point is that to be human, to really live, is to create in some manner or form. It's in everyone, but sometimes that seed needs to be watered and given sunshine, and too often this doesn't happen. Creativity is a necessity for our world and for humans to move forward in their evolution.

Creativity needs to be fully nurtured in the graphic designer. It's paramount! Being creative doesn't mean thinking of completely new ideas all the time. I have started to read the textbook for this course, Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon, and I really love the author's way of explaining that emulating the work of others that you love is a good thing. It's being creative! It's a step beyond imitation which allows you to "break through into your own thing." (p. 38) I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the book.

I'll end by posting an example of a piece of my work that I consider to be creative. This is a poster I designed for CUDO for the abCU Exhibition 2014. They used it as the primary promotional/ advertising design that I also modified for all web applications they needed. Regarding creativity/uniqueness of this design, have I ever seen an owl in a tree in art? Of course I have. Have I seen an alphabet tree before? Yes, especially as a teacher of young children (which I was for 10 years). Have I seen posters with art on the top and information/type on the bottom? Sure, it's fairly common. Still, this piece is creative to me because I chose the combinations of colors, typefaces, shapes, and other elements, along with my own artistic style, certain textures and layering, and typographic elements that would catch people's eyes and get the message across in a colorful and fun way, bringing people to the show. I believe it's creative, and even though I've emulated the work of many others who came before me, it is my own design—nobody else's.